imaginary. it s like the tooth fairy. you didn t work my children are watching. thank you, congressman. and, obviously, this was a contentious hearing yesterday and it s just the latest in an episode where house democrats are trying to get to the bottom of what was in the mueller report, trying to bring it to life and many of the president s former advisers either refusing to come before the committee or coming before the committee like corey lewandowski did yesterday. and refusing to answer many of their questions. lewandowski also was on cnn s new day this morning and also dodged quite a few questions from our anchors. jim and poppy? lauren fox, thank you for the reporting. let s talk about this and more. eliana plot and former federal prosecutor and cnn legal analyst elliott williams. you guys will answer our questions. thank you for being here. eliana, we ll get to lewandowski in a moment. let s begin with this politico reporting. i find it startling that someone
this perhaps undercovered headline. lewandowski confirmed under oath that trump asked him more than once to tell the sitting attorney general to rein in the russia probe. that s what he wanted you to deliver to attorney general jeff sessions, correct? i believe that s an accurate representation. and he wanted you to deliver it to jeff so that jeff could say it to the people, right? i believe so. however, lewandowski s grand standing exposed a growing rift inside the democratic party. we re learning about harsh words from house speaker nancy pelosi on how her fellow democrats are handling the start of an impeachment inquiry. this is startling. a new report in politico highlights the widening divide within the party that could cost them politically. let s talk about that with our congressional reporter lauren fox from capitol hill. so go ahead and leak this? that s what pelosi said according to the report in politico.
proceed with impeachment or if a future prosecutor wants to go down this road, they are free to. but that s what came out of this hearing. you corroborated evidence of a serious offense committed by the president. and that s a really good point and, jim, i m glad you highlight that because it s getting lost in the coverage. the headlines are a circus. they aren t, wow, lewandowski just said this and confirmed this under oath. and to that point, i think, you know, how jamie raskin put it, a democrat who sits on the judiciary committee, maybe explains part of it. quote, pelosi is talking about politics. and the party has to make this fundamental decision. do they want to go after, you know, these points of obstruction or do they want to go after it on the emoluments front, or are they looking at the polling that shows the majority of the american people aren t there on impeachment yet? unfortunately, you can never quite separate law and politics i think in a moment like this.
so seasoned like nancy pelosi who has been through tough debates getting people in her own party on board before, you know, felt the need to, apparently, according to politico, say to those in the room, go ahead and leak this. just showing how wide the divide is between nadler and those on his team and the impeachment front and those siding with pelosi. so yesterday i think pretty unambiguously was a circus. that hearing with lewandowski. but i don t think that all falls on mr. lewandowski. i think that democrats, and especially senior democrats feel that because the caucus lacks any unity when it comes to what they want to pursue in terms of impeachment, if they did, in fact, go down that path, what they would want to impeach the president for. you have to remember, poppy, this is something that democrats, you know, take away the question of impeachment, but even those who want to impeach the president, they don t